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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

UC Berkeley: Italian R5B

Taking an english class my last semester at Berkeley... have I already ranted about jumping through hoops? Oh, yes I have.
I got a B in the course, when I got A's in my physics courses. How? Well, there was no turning in hard copies of essays for the course, it was all online submission. Sure enough, I thought my submission went through but apparently not, which resulted in a 0 for that essay. Ole Sarah Rusell refused granting an exception -- it was either in-on-time or zero. I got A's on the last two essays even though I was too insulted by her to have any motivation, but I can't really blame her, its the system's fault. The system is quite skewed: a grade for an english course is supposed to represent the student's ability at thinking critically about the readings, which manifests itself in essays. Instead, the system measures the student's ability to do busy work: points were given for various tasks that had to be completed daily, ranging from "peer-edits" to "reading responses," which were always rewarded with full points if completed, even if you gave the dullest, lowest level thinking, generic response imaginable. My first essay was my best.


1st Essay:


2nd Essay:


3rd Essay:

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